Haggai (Haggai 2: 10-19)

[00:00:00] Many years ago, I developed a friendship with a guy in our church. This is when we still lived in Lexington, and we met for discipleship nearly every week. And this went on, I would say, at least a year, maybe years, we would meet and we would talk about how the Gospel applied to our life. [00:00:28] And at that time, my friend was deciding what he was going to do with his life, who he was going to be, what his career was going to be, where he was going to go to school, all of those things. And we would talk about that, discerning the Lord's will. [00:00:42] But it never failed. It seemed like for a whole year, every meeting, we would come back to one conversation. [00:00:53] And it was a conversation about his doubt. [00:00:57] He wondered if he was really a Christian. [00:01:02] And over time, I realized this is kind of the point of his meeting with me. It's really to get to that question and answer that question. [00:01:13] Now, from all appearances, my friend was a Christian. [00:01:17] And when I would ask him if he believed the Gospel, he would say, yes. He attended church every week. He served more than most people. He shared the Gospel with his family and friends. And yet he would always come back to this question. And he would say, I don't think I'm a Christian. I'm not sure I'm a Christian. [00:01:37] And I would say, why? [00:01:40] And he would say, it never failed. Because I don't read my Bible like I should, because I don't pray like I should, and I don't share the Gospel like I should. [00:01:53] And for some time I would say, actually, man, you do. [00:01:58] You do read the Bible. We talk about it every week. [00:02:02] I don't know about your prayer life, but I do know that you share the gospel with a lot of people who are even at our church because you shared the gospel with them. [00:02:13] And over time, this question kind of wore me down, where at one point I said, if you ask me that question, the meeting's over. [00:02:22] Very pastoral. [00:02:26] And at one of our last meetings before I moved to Richmond, I finally said to him, let's phrase the question this way. Let's put it in context. [00:02:40] I want you to say this. [00:02:43] I'm not a Christian because I don't read my Bible. [00:02:47] I don't pray, and I don't share the Gospel like I should. I want you to say that out loud. And he did. [00:02:54] Now, I want you to envision someone saying this to you. [00:03:00] I am a Christian because I read my Bible, pray and share the Gospel like I think I'm supposed to. [00:03:09] What would you say to that person if they came up to you. And in light of your doubt and false or lack of assurance, they said, well, you may not be a Christian because you don't do those things. I am a Christian because I do all those things. What would you say to them? [00:03:28] And he said, I would say that doesn't make you a Christian. [00:03:33] And I said, then why are you evaluating yourself by the standard of an unbeliever? [00:03:40] You see, the reality is we can do all of those things and not be a Christian. [00:03:46] The truth is, you can be here today and even love those things and not be a Christian. [00:03:52] You can love the study of God's word. [00:03:55] You can engage in prayer before men and have flowery, articulate theological language that impresses everyone. [00:04:06] You can debate unbelievers about the gospel and still not be a Christian because you love those things and not God. [00:04:17] The truth is, we can do a lot of good Christian things and not be Christians. [00:04:24] And that's the point of this passage in Haggai. [00:04:29] Haggai, the prophet, is warning the people of evaluating their relationship with God by cold, dead religion, just doing the things God has called them to do. [00:04:43] Remember, this is a people who have returned from exile. [00:04:46] They have returned from Babylon back to Jerusalem that is destroyed. [00:04:51] And they have begun to rebuild their city. [00:04:55] And yet as they started the temple, they realized it was not going to be a glorious temple. [00:05:03] And there were threats from enemies to overtake them again. And so they stopped building the temple to protect themselves. They actually took care of their houses and forgot about the Lord's house. [00:05:18] And the prophet Haggai is called to confront such apathy toward God. [00:05:25] And he confronted them. You're taking care of yourselves, but not the Lord's house. And he charged them to finish building the temple. [00:05:33] And Haggai's first Sermon was on August 29, 520 B.C. [00:05:38] and he confronts them, and they begin to build the temple again. They hear the Lord, they obey the Lord, Chapter one tells us, they fear the Lord. And the Lord says, I'm going to be with you as you finish the temple. And then the second sermon last week, October 17th, just almost two months later, we are reminded that they must continue to build the temple in light of God's promise to not give up, to be strong, courageous, because God is with them. [00:06:12] And then this sermon verses 10 through 19 in December, December 18th, they must be confronted because they are drifting toward cold, dead religion. [00:06:29] And the dates are important because around this time, the prophet Zechariah had been called to also preach to the people of God. [00:06:39] And if you Read the book of Zechariah, you realize that's what he's confronting. Cold, dead religion, just doing the things. [00:06:48] And yet the people are full of injustice. They're still full of sin. [00:06:53] And so Haggai says, if you're going to keep building, you've got to understand what you're doing. And God isn't calling you just to build the temple, just to do the thing. He's calling you to himself. [00:07:06] And we see in verse 10, beginning in verse 10, as he confronts the people of God, he declares to them, your works won't make you clean. [00:07:18] Notice verse 10 again on the 24th day of the 9th month. This is in December, almost three months after construction has started in the second year of Darius. Now, this is a Persian king. Remember, they're still under Persian authority, and yet they've been allowed to build the temple. Even pagan kings are supplying resources and money to build the temple, but they're still under pagan rule. [00:07:49] And the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. Remember, God's word is tied to this preacher of the word. What he says is what God says. [00:08:00] And here he's going to give them an object lesson on ceremonial cleanness. [00:08:07] And so far in the book, he's been addressing the political leaders, the religious leaders, but here he zeroes in on the religious, the priest, and he has an object lesson for them on holiness. He's probably speaking to Joshua, as we've talked about the high priest who led in worship. [00:08:27] But notice, he says, ask the priest about the law. [00:08:31] Now, the priest would perform sacrifices, but they were also teachers of the law. [00:08:37] And so if a person had a question about the law or their sacrifice, they would ask the priest, and they would often have to interpret the law. And there were questions around what made them clean before God. If I've done this or that, can I still come to worship? [00:08:54] What if this happened during the week? Am I still clean before the Lord? [00:08:59] And Haggai says, ask the priest this question, verse 12. [00:09:04] If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil, any kind of food, does it become holy? Now, it's important to understand what the word holy means. It means to be set apart to the Lord. [00:09:22] And Israel was commanded to set things apart to the Lord. This is only for the Lord, whether it was a day of the week like the Sabbath, whether it was their time that was to be set apart to the Lord, whether there were objects that they used in worship that were just for The Lord. Whether there were people like the priest, they are set apart to the Lord, they are the Lord's. [00:09:46] And there were certain sacrifices where animals would have been offered to the Lord and then the meat was used for all kinds of other things, other sacrifices. [00:09:58] Many times the priests would be allowed to take the meat home to their family, almost like payment. [00:10:05] And so what he's saying here is, if there was an animal sacrificed in worship and someone was able to carry this meat from the worship service, this animal that was set apart to the Lord, this meat that was set apart to the Lord, if it touches something else, do those things become holy? [00:10:25] Often the priest would fold his robe and carry the meat home in his robe. And the question is, when he comes in the house, if he lays the meat on the table and it touches the stew or whatever the family's having for dinner, does this all of a sudden become a holy meal? [00:10:44] And the answer is, absolutely not. That would be crazy. Notice the priest answered, no, absolutely. Don't think that the priest would be saying, no, don't think that things used in worship are all of a sudden kind of battery charged with holiness. [00:11:02] And you can walk around and start turning all kinds of things into holy, pure things. Don't think that way. The point is purity. Holiness before the Lord isn't contagious. [00:11:16] And so he says, verse 13, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? [00:11:25] Now, there were all kinds of laws about touching death, going to funerals, being around things that die, whether we're animals or humans. [00:11:36] And above all, death would make someone unclean. [00:11:40] You would have to refrain from worship, you would have to refrain from sacrifice. [00:11:46] You would have to go through rituals of ceremonial cleansing before you could enter worship again. If you had been around death, and so death does make you unclean. [00:12:00] And the priest answered, it does become unclean. [00:12:05] You're around death, you have to be quarantined. [00:12:08] No worship. [00:12:10] And the point is, impurity is contagious. [00:12:15] So purity is not contagious, impurity is. And we know how that works. [00:12:22] You got a cold, you can spread the cold, you can spread the contagion, but you can't spread the cure. [00:12:32] You can't spread health. [00:12:34] No, because we live in a world cursed by death. [00:12:38] Death is growing. Death spreads. And it takes supernatural to bring in life and spread life. And there is only one who's been able to touch things and spread holiness, and it's Jesus. [00:12:52] But purity is not contagious. Impurity is. [00:12:58] And so he gets to the point in verse 14. Then Haggai answered, so it is with these people. [00:13:05] Now this is a stern rebuke. [00:13:10] Impurity is contagious. [00:13:13] It spreads. [00:13:15] It's evil, it's wicked, it spreads in the community. [00:13:22] So it is with these people, Israel, and this nation before me. [00:13:29] They are impure, declares the Lord, and here's the reason. So with every work of their hands, and what they offer is unclean. [00:13:43] Again, there seemed to be residue of sin in the camp among the people. [00:13:50] They had not totally given their heart over to the Lord. They were just building the temple. [00:13:57] And God says here, but there's a problem. [00:14:00] You're unclean. [00:14:03] And as you build the temple, you're spreading uncleanness, meaning at heart you are a sinful people. [00:14:12] And as you build that temple as a sinful people, you are spreading sin and wickedness. The act of building the temple has become an unholy act. You have spread your sin on the act of building the temple. And so you have to be warned. [00:14:29] Building the temple will not make you clean. Purity is not contagious that way. [00:14:36] It doesn't happen through doing the things. [00:14:40] And it's an important lesson for us here today. [00:14:44] We do emphasize doing things here because we believe you should serve Jesus through serving the local church. [00:14:51] But I want to be abundantly clear in this moment, the essentials at Ashland do not make you holy. [00:15:01] Only Jesus does. [00:15:03] Attending worship doesn't make you pure. [00:15:06] Attending a BFG doesn't make you pure. [00:15:10] Clean, serving in some way doesn't make you righteous. [00:15:17] Your works don't make you clean. [00:15:22] They don't earn you some sort of pure standing before God. And why is this? [00:15:27] Well, in Jeremiah 17:9, and you need to memorize this verse, Jeremiah 17:9, it declares us the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. It is wicked. [00:15:43] That's an important verse because it describes the impurity and uncleanness of our heart by using the word deceitful, meaning your heart is wicked, and your heart will lie to you about its wickedness, its sinfulness. That's why we don't always think we're as bad as we really are. [00:16:04] That's the sin in our heart telling us, you're not that bad. [00:16:08] But Jesus was clear about our heart. [00:16:11] He says, for out of the heart, in Matthew 15, verses 18 through 20, the issue is, can you eat something that will make you unclean? [00:16:22] And Jesus says, no, it's not the things that go in, but the things that come out. Why? Because they're coming From a heart that is evil. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts. And all actions of evil, they come from your heart. [00:16:38] You want to know why you sin? [00:16:41] Because you have a sinful heart. And from your sinful heart there are desires that lead to actions. [00:16:48] That is who we are. [00:16:53] This is why Isaiah tells us that all of our righteousness is filthy rags. [00:16:59] What does he mean by that? [00:17:01] Because you have a sinful heart, you can't just perform acts of righteousness thinking they're good enough. [00:17:10] No, it's like filthy rags. This is why Paul would say before coming to faith in Christ, all of his righteousness, which was great, he knew the Old Testament better than anyone. [00:17:25] He had gone through all of the ceremonies more than anyone. [00:17:30] According to the law, Paul would say, I'm nearly perfect. A Hebrew of the Hebrews. You don't have a resume better than mine. I'm the goat of Judaism. I'm the mj. Let's just get that straight. Of Judaism. [00:17:47] No one's greater than me. [00:17:50] But the problem is those things don't make us clean because we have a wicked heart. [00:17:57] And when you try to do good things with a wicked heart, a sinful heart, what you are doing with filthy rags is just smearing your sin on good things. [00:18:11] Why? Because you're doing it for yourself and by yourself, not for the glory of Christ. [00:18:18] And so you take the good thing and say, I'm going to earn God's favor by doing this good thing, reading my Bible, praying, sharing the Gospel, and you're doing this good thing, but it's about you. And you're trying to earn God's favor through it. It is like taking a filthy, dirty, stinky, dung filled rag and just smearing it on good things. It's no use. You can't do that. [00:18:42] You are taking good things and making them unholy. That's what the people of God are doing here. Just in building the building. No, you still have wicked hearts. So in building the temple, you are making that act sinful, impure. You are spreading impurity in your works. [00:19:04] And that's why we see in the Old Testament and even here, these calls to repentance. [00:19:10] And there is a turning to God where God would say, turn from your sin. And it happened through worship, through sacrifice. Understand how sinful you are. Kill this animal. Something has to die for your sin. And now you're acceptable before God. [00:19:26] God would accept that as their purity. [00:19:31] But there was always the promise in the Old Testament for more than just these outward acts, there was the promise of Something much deeper. [00:19:41] And it was a pure heart. [00:19:43] In Jeremiah 4, verse 14, the prophet says, o Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. [00:19:51] You're not going to get rid of your sinful behavior just by doing some things. No, you need a clean heart. [00:19:58] This is why in Psalm 51, when David sins and he is before the Lord, he says, what I need more than anything is a new heart. And he says in Psalm 51, verse 10, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me. There is something twisted inside of me. There is something not right inside of me. My heart. And so I can't just do the things, just do the right things. No, I need a new heart. That's why in Ezekiel, there is a promise of a people who will have the law of God written on their heart. They won't just do the external, outward things. No, they will have the law in their heart. [00:20:46] The prophet says, God is going to take out their rock hard, solid heart that hates God and just goes through the motions. And it's going to give them a heart of flesh. Flesh that loves the Lord and loves his law and obey. They need a new heart. [00:21:05] And this is the promise that we receive when we believe in Christ. [00:21:11] You do not get a new heart by doing good things. [00:21:16] You get a new heart when you believe in Jesus. [00:21:19] This is what the New Testament calls being born again. [00:21:23] It's supernatural. [00:21:25] Your desires change. [00:21:27] It's the miracle of regeneration. When you believe the Gospel, you often wonder, how do Christians serve with genuine love? How do you do that? You gotta have a new heart. [00:21:40] How do you forgive people who have done you wrong? Well, you gotta have a new heart to do it. [00:21:47] How do you love in any way that resembles the love of Christ? You gotta have a new heart. [00:21:53] You can't just do the thing. [00:21:56] It'll wear you out. You will not finish. [00:21:59] You got to have a new heart from which all of these desires flow. And when you come to Jesus, he promises to give you a new heart. You can't give yourself a new heart. You must believe in Jesus and be transformed by him. Your works won't make you clean. [00:22:17] Next we see repentance is about God. [00:22:21] Notice verse 15. [00:22:23] Now then, consider from this day. So you still got a wicked heart and it's being displayed in what you do. [00:22:30] Now let's draw a line on this day. [00:22:33] And there seems to be repentance that marks this day. [00:22:39] But he wants to take them back. Before they obeyed the Lord, before they began to build the temple, he says, before a stone was placed upon stone in the temple of God, how did you fare? What was your life like? And we went through this in chapter one. [00:22:54] They thought that they were working and earning and bringing home what they needed to survive. But God pointed out it was always less than what you thought it would be. You weren't thriving in abundance. [00:23:08] And so before you repent it, when one came to a heap of 20 measures, he's talking about grain here. [00:23:15] Maybe you threw out the grain and you thought the harvest was going to be amazing, 20 measures. [00:23:22] But then when you went to get it, it was only 10, 50% less. [00:23:26] And when one went to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there would be but 20. You had grapes everywhere. You thought, this is going to be an amazing season of harvest, of wine, and no 60% less. [00:23:41] What he says is, before you repent it, before you turn to me, there were signs all around you that things weren't right. [00:23:49] There were signs all around you of your sinful, impure heart. [00:23:54] You see, God had made a covenant with Israel. And he told them, if you're faithful to me, you will experience my faithfulness in the land. [00:24:03] The land will produce with abundance, but when you turn your hearts away from me toward idols, and when you don't serve me, the land will not produce for you. Now, this was a covenant with the nation of Israel. It's not something that continues for individual believers today where you think, if I'm right with God, I'm going to have a greater paycheck. Miraculously, no. [00:24:29] He just told this nation, this is how you're going to know that I'm being faithful when you're faithful to me. [00:24:38] And here what we see is because they weren't all in with God, God wasn't all in with them. [00:24:44] And notice what happened in verse 17. [00:24:47] I struck you in all the products of your toil with blight. So you went out, you planted, you worked in the fields. [00:24:56] You thought, we're going to have amazing harvest. No, it was always less. [00:25:02] And then, because you didn't learn your lesson, I struck them. I blasted them. This word is used throughout Haggai to talk about the way that God comes after his people with destruction. And here it's with blight. This would be hot air that destroyed their product, their fields, or mildew, which is moisture that sets up. And you see the extremes here, from hot to wet. All these things God says, I was using to destroy what you were to harvest. [00:25:36] And then with hell, which comes down and destroys. And so to get Their attention, we see that God's blessings in the land were first restricted, then they were blasted and then they were ruined and destroyed. [00:25:50] Now all of this was to get their attention, for them to say something's not right, we're doing all the things. [00:25:57] By the way, they would have had an altar set up where this temple was being constructed from day one. And so they're, they're offering sacrifices, they're hearing the preaching of the word. They got Haggai and now they got Zechariah. They're, they're listening, but something's not right. [00:26:16] There's still something missing and they should be able to look around and see. And then when everything's being destroyed, they should have stopped and oh, we're not right with God. [00:26:28] We're not pursuing him with our hearts and our lives. Notice yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. And the language here is yet not you to me. [00:26:41] There's not even a turn here, it's the emphasis. You didn't come to me when you lost all those things. You were to come to me, not keep doing the things, not working harder at the work and worship and sacrifice. No, you should have asked, are we right with God? [00:27:02] Have we returned to God? [00:27:05] And this is the goal. It wasn't go from bad things to good things, it was to go from sin to God. [00:27:14] And notice the benefits of the blessings are in God himself. [00:27:18] This is what God wants us to understand. [00:27:20] His blessings don't come from doing the things ultimately, especially if you leave him out of the things, if he's not involved in the things. No, you're making a mess and you're bringing about destruction because you're playing with the holy things of God, thinking you're going to please him and God's going to take those things and wake you up. [00:27:49] No, you were not returning to me. [00:27:51] You see, God doesn't bless half hearted religion. [00:27:55] He desires wholehearted repentance. Turning to him, you see, it would be like the man cheating on his wife, asking for forgiveness and saying, yeah, I'm an adulterer, but I pay the bills, I take care of the kids, I clean the house, I still do the things you want me to do around here. [00:28:23] Why can't you just forgive me? [00:28:26] We would say the things you do, man, are not just meaningless. That's insulting to your wife. [00:28:35] What does that say about her? [00:28:39] And God warns us not to mock him in this way, not to try to manipulate him by just doing good things or the things we're supposed to do. There's so many times in the prophets where he says, your festivals are abomination to me. Your solemn assemblies I want no part of. [00:28:58] There's one verse in Amos where he says, I don't want to hear your songs anymore. [00:29:05] He tells the prophet Malachi, shut the door of the temple and get them out of there. [00:29:12] I don't want to have anything to do with them. The prophet Isaiah would even say that all of your festivals are such a stench in the nostril of God. It would be better for you to go out and kill a man and bring him and offer him on the altar, because that's what your worship is like. It's a disgrace. [00:29:32] The prophet Isaiah would say, you should go out and kill a pig and offer the pig's blood, which is a very unclean animal. [00:29:41] You should just bring pig's blood in here. You're acting like a bunch of pagans. Your worship is meaningless to me because you have not turned to me. And there is this call even in the prophet Joel, return to me with your whole heart. [00:29:56] Joel, chapter 2, verse 12, return to me with your whole heart. And he says, with fasting and weeping and mourning. He doesn't even refer to worship here. He doesn't refer to sacrifice. He says, get on your face and repent before me. And then, Joel, chapter 2, verse 12, and rend your hearts, not your garments. [00:30:21] What he means by that is, when you're repenting, you can take your garments and you can tear them all to pieces. Before the Lord. It was an act of repentance and sorrow. Before the Lord, he says, forget about that. You need your hearts ripped open. [00:30:35] Rip open your hearts by confessing your sin and turning to me. You need me more than the things that you are doing. And I want to ask you today, how is God graciously here? He's graciously prodding Israel to turn toward him. Notice the goal. You did not turn to me. There was no you to me in all of your doing. [00:30:58] How is God graciously prodding you to turn to Him? [00:31:02] Maybe it's through listening to sermons, going to Bible study, taking part in church stuff. But you are absolutely joyless in all of that. [00:31:13] It brings no joy to you to do those things that could be God prompting you to turn to him because you're using those things and you think those things are Him. [00:31:25] Those things are your little idol that you're worshiping the church stuff. And it's not about God. [00:31:33] Or maybe you're going through the motions and you're still clinging to sin. [00:31:38] You're clinging to unrepentant sin. [00:31:42] I have these conversations all the time with people who lack assurance and doubt. [00:31:48] And one of the first questions I ask is, is there unrepentant sin in your life? [00:31:53] Not always the case, but so often we want to cling to our sin over here and then do some good things and hope God's going to be okay with that. God's not okay with that. You're not going to find any joy and contentment doing that. And you're certainly not going to find any assurance of your salvation in doing that. When you say, I'm going to do whatever I want and then I'm going to offer some good things to God, no, you're going to lack assurance every time. [00:32:18] Maybe God's working in your heart that way and you need to repent of sin. You turn from sin and you turn to God. [00:32:28] But you have to see all of the things I want to above your life. The things the Bible study, the worship, all of the things you would say, this is church stuff. This is for God going to campus ministry. All those things. [00:32:46] Are you doing those things and you've yet to turn to God himself? [00:32:52] You have to see the things as means of grace, not God himself. [00:32:58] They're the road to God. [00:33:01] They're the channels that get you to God. [00:33:04] They're not God himself. [00:33:06] And you've got to see them that way. You got to get in the channels. You got to get on the road. Yes, you got to read your Bible. Yes, you got to pray. Yes, you got to go to church. Why? This is the way to God. And I want to know God as my Father. And all of those things that you take part in, they must exalt Christ. If they're exalting something other than Christ, just a list of things to do, they're no good. They need to exalt Christ and they need to remind you of the grace of God in the gospel. And so all of the things are about Jesus. They're reminding you of the gospel. And when you are doing those things in that way, what the Spirit does, because the Spirit loves Jesus. He loves Jesus. So when you're doing all those things to remind yourself of the gospel, what the Spirit does is he takes all those things and he drives them into your heart and he changes your heart so that you love God more and you love Jesus. And what you get at the end of that road is God as your Father. That's what Jesus and the Spirit are trying to do, get you in the channel, get you on the road so that you would be before God as your Father. And that's what you get in all of these things. [00:34:13] You should walk away from every worship study or every worship service, every Bible study, every time of prayer, when you're out sharing the gospel, when you're doing these churchy things. And you should say, I know my Father more because I've walked with Jesus and I've celebrated Jesus and that by the power of the Spirit, he has drawn me closer to my Father. Father. [00:34:36] That's what all these things are about. [00:34:39] So seriously, ask yourself the question, what is the end goal in the things you're doing? Is it so that you would know God is your father? Or you would just walk out of here today and say, man, I did some good things. I'm a better. I'm just a good Christian. No, God is prompting us to turn to him and notice what we see. Finally, the hope of it all is that there is grace for the defiled. [00:35:08] This is our hope. Verse 18. [00:35:10] Consider, from this day forward, so remember before you repent it, remember when you were doing things by your own power for your own good, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since that day, the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid. Consider, is the seed yet in the barn? [00:35:32] Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the olive tree have yielded nothing. [00:35:38] But from this day on, I will bless you. [00:35:42] Now, this is important. We wonder why he offers this date twice. [00:35:46] This would have been in what we might call the winter time, and all of the seeds had been planted and they were still waiting on the harvest. So it's in this in between time and what he said is before, when you cared only about yourself, the harvest was not good, and you've been doing things the way you want to, even sinfully. [00:36:15] And I should not bless your harvest. [00:36:18] But you've already put it in the ground. It's in the pack. Can't do anything about it now. [00:36:24] But despite your past sin notice, I will bless you. You see, they had no control over the harvest that was to come while they had still been doing things their own way. [00:36:36] No, the point here is I'm in control of what's to come. And you still deserve nothing because you're an unclean people. [00:36:47] You're defiled. [00:36:48] And the harvest you planted, if we're just honest, was defiled. [00:36:53] But I'm going to give you abundance out of grace. [00:36:57] God just says, I'm going to bless you. [00:37:00] And we have to ask the Question. Is it because they cultivated in themselves pure hearts? [00:37:06] No. [00:37:08] Is it because they got to work on the temple and it was going to be glorious and everybody just changed? Did everyone just love the Lord? No. [00:37:19] It's not the way. What's happening here? [00:37:21] It was sheer grace that God says this. [00:37:26] What your only hope is, is grace. [00:37:28] So first of all, you can't make your heart clean. You need grace. [00:37:33] Second of all, you can't achieve perfection or some religious resume by just building the temple. No, you need grace. [00:37:43] You need grace. And that's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to give you grace. [00:37:50] If you would turn to me, we would say Joel 2:13 we talked about. Joel 2:12, 13 says, return to the Lord your God. Why? [00:38:02] For he is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. [00:38:10] And so he says, as you continue to build this temple in repentance, you're going to be able to look around and you're going to see my blessing. And what is this blessing? It is grace. It's not because you're all of a sudden a pure people. It's not all of a sudden because you've done all of these great things. It is sure grace. That's why, you see, the truth is here today. You're never going to make your heart pure, and you're never going to work up a great resume that you feel good about when you stand before God. It's not going to happen. [00:38:44] Your only hope is grace, that God would be kind and merciful to you despite what you deserve. They don't deserve anything from God. They deserve their crops to continue to be blighted and destroyed. That's what they deserve. [00:39:00] But because they've turned to God in repentance, he's going to be gracious to them. [00:39:05] He's going to be kind to them. He's going to give them what they don't deserve. [00:39:11] You'll never make yourself right before God. Your only hope is grace. [00:39:17] And so what would we say here in this passage? What is the requirement? [00:39:23] You to him? [00:39:26] Turn to him. [00:39:28] That's the centerpiece of the passage. [00:39:31] Turn to him. You have a clean heart. [00:39:34] Turn to him. [00:39:36] The only requirement that God would have for you here today is that you would turn to him and you get grace. [00:39:43] What does that look like for you today? [00:39:46] Well, first of all, you say, I can't make myself pure, but Jesus can. [00:39:52] And so you turn to him by faith and you Trust in Him. [00:39:57] If you're here today and you say, I continue to try to get rid of this sin in my life, these desires, y' all would be shocked if you knew the thoughts in my head. [00:40:12] You would be aghast if you heard the way that I talked in my home this week. [00:40:21] I can't do anything about my heart. [00:40:24] That's what you should be saying today because of all those things. [00:40:28] Do you actually think that you're going to go back and change those things and make those things better? And just because you came to church today, all that's going to go away next week? Let's just be honest. You're still going to struggle with those things, right? [00:40:41] The point is you can't make yourself pure. [00:40:44] And so you look to Jesus first. [00:40:47] You look to Jesus first. [00:40:49] He will make your heart pure. When you believe in him alone for salvation, the Spirit comes into your heart. And the Spirit, he makes your heart clean. He gives you a new heart. [00:41:04] Second of all, you need to say, I can't pay for my sin, but Jesus has. [00:41:13] Maybe you're here today and you're doing the things, trying to make up for your sin. [00:41:19] You often think about that season in your life where you were vile and wicked and there were things that you did that you still can't believe. And those days haunt you. [00:41:35] And every time you open your Bible and every time you pray, every time you gather on Sunday, you are trying to pay for that time in your life. [00:41:44] It haunts you. You can't pay for it. [00:41:48] Stop trying to do these things so that those things would leave your mind. No, look to Jesus. He paid for them. [00:41:55] They were crushed and crucified on the cross when he endured the wrath of God. For you. Turn to Jesus. [00:42:01] Turn to Jesus for a clean heart. Turn to Jesus to pay for your who has paid for your sin. And then you have to say, today, I can't make myself perfect. [00:42:11] I keep trying, but I can't. But Jesus is perfect. [00:42:16] And in all of that, you know what you're saying? I don't deserve God's blessing. I have an impure heart. I can't pay for my sin, and I can't be good enough. Well, you deserve hell. You don't deserve grace. You don't deserve mercy, and you certainly don't deserve Jesus. But all God requires is that you would look to him, that it would be about him, that it would be about Christ. Jesus is the one who had a pure heart. And we see that in Jesus because He is the one who is able to touch lepers who are unclean and they become clean. [00:42:49] Why? Because he's pure inside and out. And he lives a perfect life before God and never sins and then offers Himself as a pure payment before God. He is the one who is pure, and he is the One who is right. And he is the one who has a resume of righteousness before the Father. He's the only one who deserves to be blessed. [00:43:11] And when you believe in him, in him, you get his blessing. [00:43:17] Because what he does is he changes your heart. [00:43:19] And all of your sin and all of your unrighteousness is then covered with his righteousness. [00:43:27] All those prayers you're praying right now and you go, they just don't feel righteous. They don't feel good enough. They're covered in the blood of Christ, and your Father in heaven still hears them because of Christ. [00:43:40] He covers your unrighteousness with his righteousness. And then at the end of the day, he gives you what Jesus deserves, which is the Kingdom. Maybe you're here today and you're saying, I'm a Christian because I fill in the blank. [00:43:55] Maybe you're here today and you say I'm a Christian because I read my Bible. I go to church every week and I pray and I go to campus ministry stuff, whatever it is for you. I go to Bible studies, I go to equip groups. I do all of these things. I mean, I'm in every Bible study that Madison county has to offer. I check every church's website and I try to find everything that's going on. I'm all over the place. [00:44:21] And you say, that's why I'm a Christian. [00:44:24] If you're saying that's why you're a Christian here today, please look at me right now. You're not a Christian. [00:44:32] If you're saying I'm a Christian because I'm here today, please look at me right now. I need you to hear this. [00:44:39] If you're saying I'm a Christian because I'm here today and I sang the songs and I did the things. You're not a Christian. [00:44:47] You're not. [00:44:49] There's nothing to be ashamed of. [00:44:52] You've been lied to by Satan, your heart, and maybe some false teacher. [00:45:00] But you're not a Christian if you're looking to those things. [00:45:03] You're a Christian if you're looking to Jesus alone. [00:45:06] And maybe you lack assurance today, I want to speak as pastorally as I can to you right now. [00:45:14] Maybe you're here today and you doubt, you struggle with this. [00:45:18] This is an issue that you, that you fight on a daily basis. [00:45:23] The passage today is, turn to God. [00:45:26] Don't turn to yourself. [00:45:29] Don't make a list of the things you do or you don't do. And don't do this. Listen to me. [00:45:34] Don't determine if you're a Christian here today by how you feel. [00:45:40] God's feelings about you aren't determined by your feelings about how you feel he feels about you. [00:45:50] That's a miserable way to live. [00:45:54] I know it's hard for some of us, but you're never going to make your heart clean enough to feel a certain way. [00:46:01] You're never going to do enough things to Man, I finally did it. [00:46:06] You're just not going to get there. Where one day you go, wow, I did it today. And now I know I'm a Christian because I did all the. No, you're not. It's never going to happen and you're going to live in misery. [00:46:19] My prayer for you today is by the power of the Holy Spirit, he would take the gospel and impress it on your heart, where the only thing that you can see is Jesus, his death and his life for you. Look to Jesus. [00:46:36] Look to Jesus first and foremost. He'll transform you. Your life will be different. But you got to look to Jesus first and foremost.